"Hands flat on the bench. Now."
The gun was already on my chest before I even saw her face.
Cold circle. Right over my heart. Her hand didn't shake at all.
"Whoa. Hey. Okay," I said. "You wanna maybe not point that at my —"
"Hands. Flat." She stepped in and kicked the shop door shut behind her with her boot. "Don't make me say it three times, scrap-rat."
She was Guild. Had to be. Black coat, silver sigil on the collar, that stupid clean shine that said she'd never had soot in her lungs a day in her life. Inspector badge on her chest. And young. Way too pretty to be pointing a gun at me in my own shop.
The engine under the bench was still glowing.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I slammed my palms down on the workbench like she said. The dead sigil-core was right under there, tucked in an oil pan, pulsing that sick blue-white light. The one I wasn't supposed to touch. The one that just woke up and said my name.
If she looked down, I was dead.
"Milo Crane?" she said. She didn't look down. She looked at me. Eyes gray, flat, pissed off. "Bram Hollis's charity case? The kid who fixes toasters for coppers?"
"That's me," I said. "Toaster guy. So you can lower the —"
"You lit a dead core." Her gun pressed harder. I could feel it through my shirt. "Whole block saw the flare. My whole damn precinct saw it. So don't do the dumb thing where you lie to me."
"I didn't light anything," I said. "Power surge. Old wiring. This place is held together with tape and prayers, Inspector —"
"Voss." She leaned in. Close enough I could smell clean laundry and gun oil. Nothing like the shop. "Inspector Voss. And you're a bad liar, Crane."
Her knee hit the bench. The pan underneath rattled. The light flickered.
My heart tried to climb out of my throat.
"You wanna search the place?" I said, and I tried to grin. It came out wrong. "Be my guest. But you need a warrant for that, right? Guild regs? Section —"
"I don't need a warrant when there's an unregistered sigil event," she snapped. "I need a body bag or a leash. Your pick."
She said it like she'd done it before. Like she didn't even care which one.
"Leash sounds fun," I said. "Let's talk leash."
"You think this is funny?" Her finger tightened on the trigger. Just a fraction. "That core was buried for a reason. People died to keep it dead. And you — you what? Got curious? Wanted to play hero?"
"I was fixing it," I shot back. "It was scrap. Bram said throw it out. I didn't — I wasn't trying to —"
"You touched it." Her voice dropped. Lower. More dangerous. "And it answered. Didn't it?"
The engine pulsed again. I felt it in my teeth. A warm buzz up my arm where I'd cut my palm on the sigil edge earlier. The cut was still glowing faintly. Like it had written something into me.
She saw my eyes flick down. Damn it.
Her gaze snapped down too.
No. No, no, no.
I shifted my weight, knocked my hip into the bench, hard. Tools clattered. Loud. She flinched, eyes back on me, gun still right there on my sternum.
"Hey," I said. "Eyes up here, Inspector. I'm the one you're gonna shoot, remember?"
She stared at me. Really stared. And for a second her mask slipped. Just a second. She looked tired. Like, bone-tired. And angry, but not at me.
I saw the badge on her coat. The silver sigil. It had a thin red line across it. Probation mark. I'd seen it on Guild kids who fucked up. One more mistake and their family pulled their sponsorship. They got stripped. Or worse.
Oh.
Oh, shit. That's her leash.
"How long you got?" I said before I could think better of it.
She blinked. "What?"
"Your badge," I said, nodding at it. "Red line. Means you're on thin ice, right? Daddy's not happy? Mommy's not covering for you anymore?"
Her jaw went tight. Bingo.
"Watch your mouth," she said, low.
"Or what? You'll shoot me? Then you gotta explain why you let a dead core flare on your watch and your only witness is dead on the floor." I leaned forward, just an inch, into the gun. Stupid, but I did it. "You don't want a body, Voss. You want a win. You bring me in dead, they ask why you didn't collar me. You bring me in alive, they ask why you didn't stop me sooner. Either way, that red line turns into a noose."
Her eyes narrowed. The gun didn't move, but her breathing changed. Shorter. Faster. I could feel the heat coming off her now. She was close. Too close.
"You don't know anything about me," she said.
"I know you're alone," I said. "No backup. No call. You ran here first because you wanted to be the one to find it. So you could fix whatever you screwed up before. Am I warm?"